9On a snowy winter night in Dublin, guests gather for an annual holiday party at the home of Gabriel Conroy's elderly aunts. The evening proceeds with dancing, dinner, singing and speeches, offset here and there by some awkward moments. Cautious, conservative Gabriel and his wife, Gretta, take their leave well after midnight. He is in high spirits, but notes that Gretta is deeply preoccupied, for reasons he shall soon discover. Indeed, Gabriel's epiphany is one of modern literature's most emotionally powerful scenes. James Joyce's short masterpiece takes in love, loss, ageing, change, Irish culture, identity politics ... and the finer shades of living and dying.